Effective November 2011, this blog has relocated to Stone-Soup.ca/blog. The new blog is part of a comprehensive website that continues to feature the content readers have grown to appreciate here. Please redirect your subscriptions accordingly.
Namaste!
Nonie
Posted by Nonie De Long on November 14, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/blog-has-moved/
Today I want to share a link to a site that I’ve come across in my search for well researched, reliable information on the dangers of fluoride and mainstream dentistry and the safer, more effective alternatives. The site is named after the book Cure Tooth Decay, written by Ramiel Nagel. With a background in holistic health care – hatha yoga and personal development – Nagel began researching dental health when his young daughter began to suffer tooth decay. You can read his full bio here.
His book has been well received and acclaimed by the natural health community and the wisest dentists, who have seen tremendous changes in dental health as a result of the practices Nagel sets out. Like Weston Price before him, Nagel advocates the use of minerals and natural, whole foods to strengthen and heal the teeth, and to support lifelong dental health.
Nagel also offers e-mail information free of charge to offer tips on dental health to consumers who may be wary or unprepared to read a full book. In today’s e-mail I received extensive information on fluoride, on healthy alternatives to commercial toothpastes, and on fluoride filters. This information alone has the power to make a difference in common dental health problems. I am happy to share the site as an essential to anyone who wants to understand or share with others the secrets to natural dental health. Cure Tooth Decay
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 15, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/cure-tooth-decay-one-of-the-most-informative-sites-ive-found/
Fats and oils are perhaps the most misunderstood and hyped of all food stuffs. Product labels that scream ‘fat free’,’ low fat’, and ‘zero grams tans fat’ are rampant – and an indication of how much food manufacturers capitalize on the fear people have of fat. I think part of the reason for this is that the term fat is too emotionally charged today.
Obesity is soaring, and as anyone who has carried much excess weight can tell you, it is not a fun prospect. Fitting into seats, aisles, and clothing made for skinny folk, the nasty comments and jeers, the lack of energy and vitality, and the looks one suffers at restaurants – all attack our sense of ease in our bodies. And, at a time when we are more exposed to artificial, commercial beauty as the gold standard than at any time in history, our looks have a soaring connection to our sense of worth.
As someone who grew up slim, blond, and blue eyed, as well as voraciously academic, disciplined, and hard working, I can tell you I received much more attention for my hair and appearance, and later my physique, than for any of my accomplishments. It was a toxic environment in which to learn about life and self, and it says something about my family, no doubt, but it is also a cultural epidemic.
Women today are systemically poisoned by the media. The message is clear: beauty is more important than personality or talent. We can be complete bitches, as long as we are beautiful. We will get the job if we are beautiful. We will get the man if we are beautiful. We will be happy if we are beautiful. We will have money if we are beautiful. And, beautiful is nothing short of having virgin hips, artificially pregnant breasts, adolescent features, taught, pore-less skin, a horse’s mane, and not an ounce of fat anywhere. Given this message, we collectively obsess about our waistlines. Our resolution for each New Year, as we catapult deeper into the dismal depths of disaster capitalism and Wall Street’s systemic environmental plunder, is not to unite on any issue of social or environmental injustice, but to get back into that pair of skinny jeans.
We are a fat phobic nation and we are unable to even hear the word without feeling apprehensive.
This contributes to our misunderstanding of fats. Whenever we react emotionally rather than rationally to information, we are more easily manipulated by greedy, advertisement-savy corporations. Think about it: McDonalds is sold through advertisements about ‘lovin it’. Tim Horton’s is subversively marketed as being a part of the Canadian identity. Folgers coffee is sold through commercials of couples nuzzling together in a serene setting over a cuppa. Food is sold largely on emotional response, not on nutritional properties! Advertisers make a lot of money off our emotional reaction to the word fat, and will continue to do so until we get down to seriously talking about it understanding the role it plays in our health. Perhaps this needs to start with debunking the myths.
It is a long held myth that consuming fat makes us fat.
It was initiated by a few people within the medical establishment and picked up by manufacturers who found it easy to capitalize on. Or perhaps it was discovered by the manufacturers that it was easy to produce, prolonged the shelf life of products, and had a lot of potential to capitalize on, and thus was sold to, and endorsed by, the medical establishment. It’s hard to say. But it began with the claim that saturated fats were the cause of the rising trend of heart health problems – a growing health concern in North America at the time.
Manufacturers produced margarines and trans fats in abundance, fabulous stuff because the fat bonds being damaged, it did not deteriorate like natural fat, which goes rancid quite easily. The foodstuff made with these unnatural fats had an extremely long shelf life. People obediently replaced saturated fats like butter with margarine. They cut their intake of saturated fats, ate leaner meats – often without the fat – and consumed the ‘healthy’ foods low in saturated fats, which often contained modified trans fats. They consumed less red meat, and often replaced it with processed foodstuffs, as people who don’t consume meat crave sugars. During that time, however, heart health worsened substantially, to a point where it is now the number one health related killer in North America.
Heart health was not improved by eating less saturated fats. It is now the number one health related killer in North America.
Heart health became a bigger medical problem. Moreover, it is now closely followed by cancer, which had previously been a modest health problem. And, another health problem has risen to epidemic rates, affecting younger and younger generations.
….For the statistics on these health issues, and the second part of this series, please check back in a week.
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 15, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/the-skinny-on-fat-part-1-losing-the-weight-of-all-those-myths/
Most pain in the body is a symptom of dehydration.
Unhealthy cholesterol deposits are a symptom of dehydration.
High blood pressure is a symptom of dehydration.
Diabetes is a symptom of dehydration.
Crow’s feet are a symptom of dehydration.
Hypertension is a symptom of dehydration.
Stomach ulcers, headaches, allergies, and inflammation are all symptoms of dehydration.
So says the late Dr. Batmanghelidj. A traditionally trained and well esteemed M.D., he discovered what he called the water cure quite by accident, when, working in a prison and out of medication for the clients, he advised someone with a stomach ulcer to drink two glasses of water. He did this knowing the placebo effect, and not having anything else to offer the gentleman. To his astonishment, the pain went away almost immediately. When the gentleman asked him what to do if the pain came back, he told him to drink more water. The chronic ulcer pain was completely and indefinitley treated this way.
The doctor was intrigued and began to experiment and research the effects of dehydration on the body. What he discovered has been suppressed by mainstream medicine. Water is free or cheap after all.
Although not for long, of course. Read Maud Barlow’s Blue Gold if you would like to depart here, or get the video.
Dr. Batmanghelidj discovered that the body’s drought management system shuts down specific functions that cause water usage when water levels are low in the body, in an effort to keep the body’s most essential functions working. In the case of hypertension, the vascular system is constricted to preserve water. In the case of asthma, the bronchial tubes are constricted to prevent the loss of water through breath. In the case of cholesterol, when the vascular system is constricted and blood pressure is thus raised, the venous system is damaged with micro rips and tears and cholesterol – the body’s natural band aide – comes to the rescue.
Dr. Batmanghelidj devoted years to educating the public, after realizing that the medical establishment is not interested in treatments it can’t label, patent, and sell (and which create a need for yet more treatments and profits). He recommends an intake of 4 quarts of water a day for the average person, 2 from food and 2 from water. He insists that thirst is not a reliable way to determine hydration levels, and instead suggests hydrating oneself throughout the day. He also identifies caffeine as a neurotoxin – much like morphine and cocaine – and suggests that it interferes with hydration in the body. The only drink that can hydrate properly, he maintains, is pure, clean water with the appropriate minerals added to help the body use the water to heal itself.
A good guide of hydration, says Batmanghelidj, is urine colour. Clear is good. Anything with a stronger colour indicates dehydration.
To learn more about these amazing claims and to better understand the science behind it, pick up a copy of Dr. Batmanghelidj’s books or visit his website:
Obesity, Cancer and Depression: The Common Cause and Actual Cure
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 14, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/dehydration-do-you-know-the-symptoms/
A New Year and an old resolution. It’s the season of watching what we eat, counting calories, and signing up for a gym membership many will pay for until they die and likely use for a month or two. As everyone in the health community seems to be writing about how to lose weight, I would like to offer my two cents.
Diet Schmiet. Just don’t do it.
Dieting does NOT work, if the goal is to lose weight and keep it off. It is a flawed concept from the onset: if I deny myself the ‘bad’ things for a while, I will get skinny and then I can have them in moderation. But once we start eating them again, we are doomed, because we crave the foods we are accustomed to and we are creatures of habit. Hence the cycle many of us cannot get out of: lose, gain, lose, gain.
Instead, my suggestion is to make a lifestyle change. This does not mean denying ourselves the ‘bad’ food and call it a lifestyle, rather than a diet. This means change our schedules. Change our relationships with food and people. Change our activities. Change our lives.
As I said, we are creatures of habit. If we get up at 7, shower, and rush out the door at 7:20 so we can get to Tim’s before work, the answer isn’t to skip Tim’s. We are still screwed to find a healthy lunch alternative if we haven’t taken the time to pack one, and we are going to set ourselves up for blood sugar problems and thus cravings all day if we skip breakfast. This will be even worse if we consume caffeine to keep us going. The answer is not to deny ourselves something if we want lasting changes. I believe the answer is to create a new, healthier routine.
This past year I joined the millions of single parents who work outside the home and still manage the child and home care alone. I have to confess, I am often overwhelmed by the responsibility of it all. As a result, I have taken to eating take out food when I have not made meals for myself, as I know I suffer from low blood sugar and absolutely MUST eat at certain times. The consequence has been dire on my health: I don’t feel as trim and I have diminished energy and clarity.
But I have begun to turn that around. I have changed only a few things. My goal is 10 fruit and veggies a day, with at least three servings liquid, and as many as possible raw. I have begun packing a lunch for myself as well as my son the night before, after dinner (when I am not hungry and can make good decisions), putting as much care into balancing my lunch nutritionally as I do for my son. This means I pack raw fruit and vegetables as my staple, with some lean protein and whole grains (no wheat for us). I have also begun going to bed earlier, at a set time, and getting up earlier to give myself time to make a very healthy smoothie for breakfast and to walk the dogs before heading out the door, two things I had been skipping and which I wanted to change. And, perhaps most importantly, I have also begun to drink alkaline, mineralized water: 2 cups on rising and going to bed, and one cup every hour all day. I have also added a green drink morning and night, a fresh juice after work, as well as hemp oil to my meals, and now consume chia seeds before bed to assist cleansing my body, as I find psyllium too dehydrating for me.
I am not focusing on what I am not going to eat, or on counting calories (ineffective, anyway). I am focusing on choosing foods I know to be packed with nutrients to heal and nourish my body. I am blessing the food I eat before I consume it, and giving thanks for it. These small measures have already had an impact.
Inside of two weeks I can feel that my stomach has shrunk. My waist is leaner, my mind is clearer, and I am sleeping better. I can’t eat as much at meals now, especially dinner, and I don’t crave sweets or fats at all. I don’t feel hungry or tempted between meals, and I don’t feel hungry even at meals at times, but I eat on time anyway. My energy is still low, but it will take a while to cleanse the cells of the garbage I was eating and get that back. I’ll give it a month or two and keep adding superfoods as I go. I’d like to add fresh juice a few more times a day, with dinner and breakfast, and that is my next goal, along with more yoga and outdoors activities, which I miss. Perhaps some x-country skiing on my day off.
As someone who studies nutrition, I could formulate advice for weight loss that compares with the other things you will read in the weeks to come. But it seems a bit futile, given that blanket advice is good for one person but detrimental to another. Eat more fibre is grand for many, but not for those who suffer from irritable bowel problems. Vegetarianism is good for the planet. It is extremely hard on the health of those with O blood type. Many people will advocate for whole foods as much as possible, and unprocessed. I agree. In theory. But I start my day with a green product and a smoothie that come in packages. They are whole foods, but definitely they have undergone some processing to end up in a powdered form. (I am careful to use only those that are processed in ways I feel leave the product healthy).
My point is that one size advice is cheap. It always has exceptions. As I see it, everyone has unique dietary needs. And, the only reason for dieting is to improve the quality of life. Thus, I think we should focus on the quality of life first, and not the food. A list of lifestyle goals should pre-empt a list of dietary goals, because dietary goals that don’t fit the lifestyle are not sustainable in the long run. That is the impetus behind my desire to consume more raw food and to consume more vegetable drinks: to free up my energies from food prep while getting the most from my food, so I have more time to enjoy other activities.
People who desire being extremely busy, and who do not want to be fussing in the kitchen, are well suited to consume a largely raw juice diet that is quick and portable. A mother of 5 will have a hard time with the cost and storage of that much raw produce. She wants to lose weight while offering her kids a sit down meal at night that meets their tastes, too. Maybe she needs to focus on the type of grains and fats she is using, and on fresh produce over canned or frozen. A busy executive may need to focus on the restaurants at which she can eat, and the menu items she can select, without defeating her health goals. What I’m trying to say is our needs vary. Be wary of one size fits all diet advice. Think about your personal goals and creative ways to meet them.
Feel free to use any of my ideas to meet your health goals, or to share some of your own ideas below in the comments section. I will be happy to approve them, as long as they are non-commercial in nature. Here’s wishing everyone success in making positive lifestyle changes this year!
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 13, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/diet-schmiet/
(NaturalNews) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) today issued a startling report that admits 2 in 5 children in America show signs of fluoride poisoning (streaking, spotting or pitting of teeth due to dental fluorosis). The agency concluded that fluoride levels need to be lowered in municipal water supplies, reducing fluoride to 0.7 milligrams per liter (the previous recommended upper limit was 1.2 milligrams per liter).
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 9, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/2-out-of-5-us-kids-show-fluoride-poisoning-centre-for-disease-control/
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 7, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/new-site-i-found-on-fluoride-for-great-info/
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030933_fluoride_New_York_City.html#ixzz1AI6XD3sh
If you live in NYC, please sign this petition from the Fluoride Action Network:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/…
As you may already know, the fluoride that’s dumped into the water supplies in cities like NYC is actually derived from the toxic byproducts of the phosphate mining industry. Twenty-four studies have now been publishing linking fluoride to low IQs in children, including a recent study that showed water fluoridation strongly correlated to a statistically significant reduction in children’s IQs (http://www.prisonplanet.com/fluorid…).
Also, if fluoridated tap water is used to create infant formula, this can cause a toxic overdose of fluoride in infants, delivering up to 200 times the fluoride level of breast milk and causing fluoride poisoning (http://www.naturalnews.com/030123_f…). This can lead to cancer, tooth discoloration and neurological harm, among other side effects.
The city of San Diego is right now threatening to add fluoride chemicals to another section of the city, affecting 1.4 million residents there. If you live in San Diego, please help us oppose this fluoridation plan by taking action now with this petition (urgent deadline, please act today):
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/…
These petitions are being organized by the Fluoride Action Network (www.FluorideAlert.org), where the executive director professor Paul Connett leads a science-based effort to eradicate fluoride chemicals from our water and thereby protect the health of our families and children.
He’s the author of The Case Against Fluoride – How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There (http://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-…).
This book is packed with information, citations and the scientific evidence on why fluoride is extremely dangerous for humans to ingest in the quantities currently being used in municipal water supplies. Highly recommended reading.
Watch for more news about fluoride here on NaturalNews.com, where we are working to support grassroots efforts to stop the chemicals that are poisoning our world and harming our people: GMOs, fluoride, mercury fillings, pharmaceuticals, chemotherapy, vaccines and more.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030933_fluoride_New_York_City.html
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 7, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/urgent-action-needed-to-help-stop-fluoridation-of-new-york-city-and-san-diego/
Reprinted from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service: free subscription link http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html and archive link http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml
(OMNS Jan 5, 2011) There was not even one death caused by a dietary supplement in 2009, according to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System.
The new 200-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.
Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid, herb, or dietary mineral supplement.
Two people died from non-nutritional mineral poisoning, one from a sodium salt and one from an iron salt or iron. On page 1139, the AAPCC report specifically indicates that the iron fatality was not from a nutritional supplement. One other person is alleged to have died from an “Unknown Dietary Supplement or Homeopathic Agent.” This claim remains speculative, as no verification information was provided.
60 poison centers provide coast-to-coast data for the U.S. National Poison Data System, “one of the few real-time national surveillance systems in existence, providing a model public health surveillance system for all types of exposures, public health event identification, resilience response and situational awareness tracking.”
Over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. Even if each of those people took only one single tablet daily, that makes 155,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of nearly 57 billion doses annually. Since many persons take more than just one vitamin or mineral tablet, actual consumption is considerably higher, and the safety of nutritional supplements is all the more remarkable.
If nutritional supplements are allegedly so “dangerous,” as the FDA and news media so often claim, then where are the bodies?
Reference:
Bronstein AC, Spyker DA, Cantilena LR Jr, Green JL, Rumack BH, Giffin SL. 2009 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System (NPDS): 27th Annual Report. Clinical Toxicology (2010). 48, 979-1178. The full text article is available for free download at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2009%20AR.pdf
The data mentioned above are found in Table 22B, journal pages 1138-1148.
For Further Reading:
Download any Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers from 1983-2009 free of charge at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/NPDSPoisonData/NPDSAnnualReports.aspx
Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org
The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.
Editorial Review Board:
Ian Brighthope, M.D. (Australia)
Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. (USA)
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (Canada)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Ellis, M.D. (Australia)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
James A. Jackson, Ph.D. (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, M.D., Ph.D. (Sweden)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)
Jagan Nathan Vamanan, M.D. (India)
Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org
To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 7, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/zero-deaths-from-vitamins-minerals-amino-acids-or-herbs/
Read the full story and be sure to check out the links to the studies at NaturalNews.com.
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 5, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/canadian-study-finds-midwife-births-safer-than-hospital-births/
“9 out of 10 dentist recommend brushing with fluoride toothpaste to prevent tooth decay. Ever wonder what the other ones recommend? Who are they? Do 90% rise to the top of their field and ask the tough questions or do 90% just do as they’re told? Look around and you tell me!” Paraphrased from a lecture at the Institute of Holistic Nutrition, given by Darko J. Prce MSc, CNP, RNC, Holistic Irridology Darko J. Prce MSc, CNP, ROHP
In the early 1900′s Dr. Weston Price, a dentist out of Newburgh, Ontario, traveled around the globe to study and understand tooth decay. He came to realize that aboriginal peoples with traditional, natural diets of various local foods, although those foods were diverse, produced healthy teeth, no matter the cleanliness of the teeth, and an unnatural, processed Western diet produced tooth decay. His research was very thorough and well documented in his 1939 published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. It included thousands of photos and slides. He concluded that the cause of dental decay and malformation was improper nutrition.
Cavities and malformed teeth are a result of improper nutrition, not cleanliness, and not heredity.
Dr. Price and his wife went just about everywhere in their journeys. They traveled to isolated villages in the Swiss alps, to cold and blustery islands off the coast of Scotland, to the Andes mountains in Peru, to several locations in Africa, to the Polynesian islands, to Australia and New Zealand, to the forests of northern Canada, and even to the Arctic Circle. In all, Price visited with fourteen groups of native peoples. Politically Incorrect: The Neglected Nutritional Research of Dr. Weston Price, DDS
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0203cat/020305ppnf/price.html
Price compared groups that had opted to consume a Western diet – urban areas of aboriginal cultures where the people had begun to adopt Western patterns of living – with those more rural areas of aboriginal cultures that continued to consume a more natural diet. The ones that ate the more commercially prepared and stored foods showed far higher rates of Western diseases and much higher rates of dental caries and malformation. (They also had many more personality problems.) The photos that compare the cultures are shocking and tell a story that words cannot. The healthy people all boast large, bright white smiles, with straight teeth, with vigor and happiness. The modernized people show terribly formed dental arches, multiple carries and rot, and a host of other health problems including tuberculosis, high suicide rates from dental caries (the pain no doubt), mental health problems and depression, a changing of the facial features to be malformed, and various infections.
His photographs capture the suffering caused by these foodstuffs – chiefly rampant tooth decay. Even more startling, they show the change in facial development that occurred with modernization. Parents who had changed their diets gave birth to children who no longer exhibited the tribal patterns. Their faces were more narrow, their teeth crowded, their nostrils pinched. These faces do not beam with optimism, like those of their healthy ancestors. The photographs of Dr. Weston Price demonstrate with great clarity that the ‘displacing foods of modern commerce’ do not provide sufficient nutrients to allow the body to reach its full genetic potential – neither the complete development of the bones in the body and the head, nor the fullest expressions of the various systems that allow humankind to function at optimal levels – immune system, nervous system, digestion, and reproduction (Sally Fallon, Nutrition Writer, as found at Politically Incorrect: The Neglected Nutritional Research of Dr. Weston Price, DDS).
Of the healthy peoples with the more natural diet, Dr. Price found these commonalities:
Babies were born with very few complications in these cultures and there were many old people, dispelling the myth that we live longer today. Early death was attributed to dangerous lifestyles, and the Aboriginals did not seem to suffer from heart disease or degenerative diseases at the rates we do now.
Natural meats and fats were the natural preference, as opposed to grains or sweets.
The foods the sickly aboriginals consumed were thus:
Price observed that the opposite was also true in reverse. Just as an aboriginal would get sick and have dental caries if s/he ate modernized foods, the aboriginals that switched back to a traditional diet enjoyed renewed health, and the dental decay stopped or reversed itself.
It’s true! Cavities can be reversed!
When we follow a natural diet high in minerals and vitamins and in raw protein, fermented foods, and in natural fats, including essential fatty acids; when our food is all whole and naturally preserved; when our bodies receive sunlight, fresh air, and exercise – the result is invariably healing.
For a lot of people, the idea of dental healing is far fetched, but if we think about it, we find that it makes sense: bones heal and regrow after damage in a healthy body, including infection and breakage. Teeth are an extension of our skeletal system. They are bones. Well, what do we know about bone health today?
We know that vitamin D (through sunlight with no SPF or through supplements) is as essential to bone health as calcium and magnesium are. We know that a body that is acidic (has an acidic pH when saliva tested) is likely to be drawing minerals from the bones to sustain the proper pH for optimal health. A body that is alkaline (has a slightly alkaline pH when saliva tested) is in a position for optimal health, since the minerals in the blood can be used to build bones and tissue. Thus, a body with a high mineral diet is able to stop and even reverse tooth decay!
What about Fluoride? Did you know it’s more toxic than lead?
Fluoride is a naturally occurring substance in the Earth’s crust and in its natural state, it’s a gas. Small amounts are present in food and in water naturally. Commercially, it is used in pesticides because it kills organisms. Thus, we get a higher than normal amount when we eat pesticide laden foods and it becomes more concentrated the further you go up the food chain. It is well known that it is a neurotoxin and highly toxic to human beings – more toxic than LEAD, and second only to mercury! Ingesting 2.5 grams of the fluoride found in toothpaste (sodium fluoride) would likely kill an adult. A small child could die by eating the contents of a regular tube of toothpaste.
Fluoride is not remotely needed for health. It is recommended by dentists because it is thought that it poisons the bacteria in the mouth. It poisons the bacteria it touches. Ingesting it does nothing for our dental health and poses a serious threat to our overall health. It should not be in our water. We are brushing with poisonous chemicals every time we brush with fluoride.
If you look closely on your toothpaste container you will see a warning that you MUST not swallow it. If they have to issue a warning, it is REALLY bad for you. The argument of the Dental Association is that it is safe in small amounts. But when it’s in the water, and touches your cheeks and gums from toothpaste to absorb into your blood daily for years – that is not a small amount.
Over time, that small amount can lead to fluorosis – or over-exposure. This is an irreversible condition which can be seen when the tooth enamel is permanently weakened and discolored or pitted, often with white or yellow or brown spots on them. I have this. That is why I went searching for the cause. I had it by the time I was 10. I had irreversible fluoride over-exposure and bodily damage by the age of 10! And yet we are told it is safe for our children to continue to use it on their teeth!
Over the past 50 years, the prevalence of dental fluorosis has increased quite dramatically in the United States and other fluoridated countries. According to the Centers for Disease Control, dental fluorosis now impacts 32% of American children. (In the 1940s, dental fluorosis rates in fluoridated areas averaged 10%.) source
The outward sign of fluoride over-exposure is dental fluorosis, but it is linked to what is called skeletal fluorosis – a neurological impairment causing arthritic conditions and brittle bones. I was diagnosed at 19 with crippling arthritis. I lived on a farm with zero fluoride in the water, but I used a lot of toothpaste and religiously brushed and rinsed with fluoride in our school fluoride program! The Dental Association is well aware that over-exposure to fluoride causes this condition in developing bodies, but refuses to acknowledge that the fluoride that causes a mineralization disorder of the tooth enamel also causes harm throughout the body.
Ingesting fluoridated water is linked with multiple animal studies showing a reduction in learning and memory. It is linked with reduced cognitive ability in children. For a more extensive list of the damage of fluoride, go here.
The reason it is in the water supply is scary. There are no studies to support the claim that it is safe or beneficial to health for tooth decay when added to the water. It is an industrial waste that needed relocating and it involves big business and Big Pharma. Fluoridated tap water has about 1 ppm. That is considered a toxic amount. In the interest of good health it is advisable to seek out water filtration systems to keep this contaminant out of your home (don’t assume bottled water is safe, many are fluoridated – some at higher concentrations that tap water!) and to switch to a fluoride-free toothpaste.
For more detailed info on fluoride you can go here.
So brushing with fluoride won’t help protect my teeth from dental cavities?
Fluoride inhibits enzymes that breed acid-producing oral bacteria whose acid eats away tooth enamel. This observation is valid, but some scientists now believe that the harmful impact of fluoride on other useful enzymes far outweighs the beneficial effect on caries prevention.”
- UNICEF, Dec 1999“All of the recent large-scale studies on fluoridation and tooth decay show that fluoridation does not reduce tooth decay. Studies from New Zealand, Canada, Europe, and the US have confirmed no difference in decay rates for permanent teeth of residents of fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated communities.” (Ellen and Paul Connett, Ph.D. http://www.apfn.org/apfn/fluoride.htm)
The best way to prevent and even reverse dental decay, as discovered and documented by Dr. Price over 80 years ago, is through proper nutrition, with lots of minerals and with lots of sunlight or a vitamin D supplement. I have read many articles that suggest that 2000IU per day of vitamin D is a healthy and safe amount for a normal sized adult and that 4000IU is the therapeutic adult dose in suspected cases of depletion.
The next time a dentist tells you or your family to brush with fluoride, you may want to seriously consider the source. Your dentist is a member of the same professional association that even today continues to use and defend mercury amalgams despite overwhelming evidence that it is unsurpassed in toxicity to human beings:
Dr. Williamson and his colleague, Jordan Davis, M.D., say toxicity due to mercury amalgams is pandemic in our society–yet hardly anybody understands or appreciates that fact. As it turns out, mercury toxicity could provide a significant explanation for the explosion in learning and behavioral problems, autism and a whole host of other conditions since World War II–that 55-year period corresponds to the introduction and widespread use of mercury amalgam. source)
Perhaps when your dentist insists that mercury, and fluoride are safe for your family you should simply nod and suggest rinsing with pure chlorine bleach or gasoline as a fun alternative. I believe both of them would kill plaque-causing bacteria just as well.
Sources:
Posted by Nonie De Long on January 5, 2011
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/the-trooth-today-about-tooth-decay/
The bulk of the letters I get in response to my blog are those from parents who feel they are being forced to medicate their children against their better judgement. They are usually desperate.
The agencies involved in this coercion are invariably public schools, child welfare and protection agencies, doctors and nursing staff, and ex spouses. The parents confide in me that they know drugs are not the answer and they do not see any improvement on the drugs! However, they don’t know where to turn for help to fight the agenda to drug their children.
A lot of parents just give in when they realize what they are up against.
I will tell you now, a lot of them just give in when they realize the resistance they are up against. The agencies often threaten to take their custody away. They treat parents like they are irresponsible and unfit for protecting their children. My heart goes out to people in this circumstance because I know first hand what it is like.
Here are some suggestions from someone who has had some success fighting this agenda to drug our kids:
I also suggest these strategies:
If everything else fails, be ready to relocate to protect your child. You are up against a system of corruption.
Lastly, if all else fails, I suggest having your passport ready and being willing to relocate to where you can access a doctor who will support you or a culture which supports natural therapies. If you think this is extreme, you don’t understand fully what you are up against. Many natural doctors have had to quit their practices and go into hiding or relocate (not because patients complained but because patients were made well) and many parents have lost their children for not consenting to the prescribed medical treatments.
My son was taken from me when I demanded supports, not drugs.
My son was taken from me when I demanded in home supports rather than giving him up to the CAS to drug indiscriminately, as they routinely do with ‘problem’ children. During that time he was traumatized brutally. The CAS tried to force me to give him up. And, while I rarely wax religious outside my inner circle, I will tell you that the Creator did not allow them to even say one word against me when it came to court. They backed down and struck a deal, because I was found blameless, and had to return my son. Thereafter, they put workers in my home, not to help, but to watch me, (they could not afford workers to help us, but they could afford them to spy on us) and those workers became my son’s and my greatest advocates, backing me up and giving agency support to the therapies I found useful. Some workers were not as good as others, but we managed to connect with one who made a world of difference in my son’s care. She supported the natural therapies because she witnessed those therapies actually work to transform my son. Thus, when my son was made better by nutrition and vitamins, I had professionals in my home and in my son’s school that knew him well enough to verify it. The truth speaks for itself when you find people who are open minded enough to listen. In my case it only took one professional standing beside me to change the direction of the tide in my son’s care.
If you are a professional, a child and youth worker, a teacher, or a counselor, and you do not feel you can make a difference or change anything, listen to me when I say, one person can completely change the trajectory of a child’s life if they have the courage to do what’s right.
I cannot stress enough to parents that what you are taking on is not a bad doctor or a bad school. You are taking on a powerful system of corruption that is created to make and keep people sick for the profit of a few. Many teachers and professionals see it. Think about it, they are parents, too! But they are also swamped with fears of job security and conforming to peer standards. Child and Youth workers in our culture do not stand up against doctors. There is a very strong hierarchy of power in place. And, like most systems, the people within it don’t always realize the agenda they are pushing. A well intentioned teacher may think she is doing right by pushing drugs. She has been told that is what is responsible to do. It is your job to convince as many of these professionals as possible that your child is better off with natural therapies – find ways to demonstrate this for them to see. Once they see it and support you, you are a much stronger advocate.
In natural medicine we call this particular system of corruption the pharmaceutical cartel. And, like any corrupt thing, it is based on lies and deception and truth alone will take it down.
Don’t let your fear overcome you!
When we allow our conscience to guide us and act in faith of the truth, that will infect others around us and we find we are no longer alone in our struggles. There was a period where I felt completely overwhelmed and alone. I did not stay there because my faith in the truth caused me to act and my actions and conviction infected people around me until they were equally supportive of my natural therapies. The people who began by cautioning me against hoping for a miracle of healing then came to stand up beside me and proclaim one. We find that the power of truth overcomes all obstacles, no matter how frightening or powerful they may be.
I believe if you search far enough in nature you will find a cure for your child, as I did, rather than a medication to suppress symptoms. I believe the body is a living miracle that is created with the innate power to heal itself when it has the support it needs from nature to do so.
Again, I wish to stress that every parent in this situation should start by contacting CCHR for advocacy and assist. They understand and have been a tremendously inspiring resource for me after a long journey where I could have used such a well informed advocate.
Posted by Nonie De Long on December 14, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/parents-desperate-for-help-to-protect-kids-from-drugging/
While plastic surgeons routinely assure women seeking breast implants that they are safe (except the risks commonly associated with surgery and what they call the ‘slight risk’ of deflation, capsular contracture, and leakage), a growing number of parents and doctors disagree. American Pathologist and Professor, Dr Radford Shanklin, is among those that believe implants are dangerous to babies. He is convinced that silicone poisoning (siliconosis) due to breast implants is being passed to developing fetues.
Babies injured while in the womb!
It was previously suspected that it might be possible for breast-feeding babies to be exposed. “An American study (in 1994) found that six out of 11 children breastfed by mothers with implants had digestive tract problems causing pain, vomiting and poor weight gain.”(2) Your plastic surgeon will tell you it is safe to breast feed, or that there is no scientific data that it is unsafe, but Dr. Radford Shanklin’s research sheds new light. “At first we thought women who breastfed passed it on. Then we realized that mother-to-baby transmission was taking place with women who weren’t breast-feeding. It is cross-placenta.”(1)
This means that while the baby’s nervous system, brain, and immune system are being developed in the womb, the baby is being exposed to toxic substances that bleed from the implant or implant shell into the mother’s bloodstream and tissue! The devastating effects on children have already begun to be seen.
Sadly, the doctor does not know of a cure for the ensuing siliconosis that causes babies to have excessive colic and digestive problems, followed by aches and pains, fatigue, immune system problems, skin disorders, Autistic-like behaviours, Lupus, bone deformities, joint and muscle pain, bladder problems, allergies, and problems growing and developing properly. The symptoms mirror those of women affected by siliconosis after having implants.
The question remains why plastic surgeons tell women that the implants are safe, given that, in 50 years, no definitive studies have been conducted by the implant makers or the FDA on the effects of silicone on children. Studies on the long-term safety of implants in women (a 20+ year study) have also not been undertaken.
Numbers growing but surgeons and regulatory bodies turn a blind eye!
The numbers of women and children claiming to be harmed by implants is steadily growing as support groups online attract women that previously had nowhere to turn. Previously women who felt that implants had caused health problems to themselves or their children were on their own, often dismissed by their plastic surgeons and doctors because implants are assumed and marketed to be safe. Margot Cameron, founder of a UK support group, believes doctors don’t know the symptoms and wrongly diagnose women. “They just refuse to face the facts.” She says this after five women in her group died, all wrongly diagnosed.
Another problem diagnosing these women is that their symptoms don’t fit the symptoms of one auto-immune diagnosis. They usually span many, so it is common for implant survivors to be diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, and MS, simultaneously, rather than ‘siliconosis’ because, although a growing number of doctors see and treat this disorder, with tissue samples to prove that the material from the implants has migrated throughout the body, according to most plastic surgeons, it does not exist. Call it a medical neener neener. Hmm, maybe that has something to do with the lack of motivation to study women for 20 years after implants, since clinical data shows that a whopping 95% of women experience rupture or deflation, and the ensuing leakage into the blood stream, after 20 years…
“More than one million worldwide are sick after having had implants,” according to NHS figures.(1)
Judy Fitch of Essex is one such person. She was 24 when she had her implants. Some time later, her implant burst and she had it removed, although some of the silicone had escaped into her body. Since then she has had 15 operations on different body parts. Her daughter started having problems with arthritis and other aliments when she was 11 and is now severely disabled by chronic pain in her joints. Her son has had chronic eczema, and painful joints, also at an astoundingly young age.(2)
Mary Bowler of Norfolk shares her story. She sued the U.S. manufacturers of her implants, making legal history, for making her baby sick. Her daughter has suffered unexplained allergies and stomach problems since birth.(3)
Mindy had saline implants in 2005. Within 6 months she was experiencing debilitating health symptoms. In 2007 she tested positive for mold, which is known to accumulate in the cavity of saline implants over time. Tests showed she was extremely high in heavy metals (allowed by the FDA to be a part of the silicone shell in implants). She had the implants removed in 2007 and finally experienced relief from her symptoms. (summarized from the book True Breast Implant Stories: http://www.amazon.com/dp/141842191X/ref=nosim/?tag=shirlswellncafen)(4)
To ban or not to ban? The authorities can’t decide!
While silicone implants were banned in the U.S. in 1992, they have remained available in Britain and are now partially allowed in the U.S. again. Apparently, they were unsafe, but not for the British folk, and um, not anymore. Yeah, that’s the story.
Health Canada similarly restricted the use of silicone implants for over 15 years. But, they had a change of heart in 2006, coincidentally the same year the U.S. lifted their ban. Health Canada’s Dr. Supriya Sharma defended the action, saying changes in the manufacturing of the implants, now with a thicker shell, makes them safer. The original ban was based on the rate of rupture and the release of silicone gel into the body, as well as the ensuing deformation of the chest wall and the bogus claims about the product’s longevity.
But, the safety of the new silicone implants has not yet been determined. They have been approved for study purposes. Unlike other medical devices that must prove safety and efficacy prior to approval, implant manufacturers seem to have special consideration. The FDA is entering a trust relationship with manufacturers who assured the public that the devices were safe the last time around – to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of women and to their children. In fact, implant manufacturers have never had to prove the safety of their devices like other companies. They go to the front of the line and get in for free, it seems. Implants were one of the devices that were grandfathered in, rather than those that were tested and proven to be safe and effective to receive the FDA stamp of approval.
Oddly, the immunogenicity of the silicone was never taken into account. In her book, “The Naked Truth About Breast Implants,” Dr. Susan Kolb, M.D. explores the mistake of this oversight, which she endured first hand.(5)
It doesn’t matter where you get them from, it doesn’t matter when they were put in, what we see consistently across all years and all types is very poor quality, frequent manufacturing defects, and in almost all cases, major problems that arose as a result of the implant. At the very least, a poor appearance; at the very worst, death,”says former Senior Scientific Advisor for Canada’s (now defunct) Department of Health and Welfare, Dr. Pierre Blais. (6)
He runs a firm that studies high risk medical systems and feels breast implants fall into this category. After having examined every type of breast implant made worldwide, his analysis is that they are consistently of a poor quality with numerous defects. He explains that it is misguided to think a thicker shell results in a safer implant. He points out that silicone is a mix of thousands of compounds and it is not uniform from product to product, even those of different batches from the same company. Thus, the safety on a broad scale can’t be determined because the products vary so widely.(6)
Dr. Susan Kolb believes it is the shell itself that stimulates the immune system response which is responsible for the inflammation and ensuing health concerns. Thus, all breast implants are dangerous medical devices. Of her book, Dr. Radford writes, “The phrase ‘saline implants’ was a deliberate simplification by the manufacturers, the spinmeisters and some surgeons, to bypass the uncomfortable and inconvenient truth that they were basically silicone devices which happened to contain saline.” The implications are clear: not only are silicone filled implants a health threat if silicone toxicity is the problem, but saline implants as well.(5)
This would seem to be supported by the number of women in online support groups suffering from the very same auto-immune disorders after receiving ‘saline’ implants as those that received silicone implants. Patty Fausset, of Canada, is one such person. She developed rheumatoid arthritis after having ‘saline’ implants. She had not been sick in ten years prior to the implants, then suddenly fell gravely ill.(6)
Dr. Blais notes that the valves in saline implants are known to be frequently defective and that the shells become increasingly porous over time. Thus, even if the silicone in the saline implants did not cause toxicity, the stagnant water within the implant which becomes moldy and putrid over time seeps out and wreaks havoc on the body’s immunity.
Even for the implants where the effect is not so ‘gross’, in other words, you don’t see a huge amount of foreign stuff stuck inside—like a bad aquarium? You find that when you look at the fluid closely. The particles and the inoculae—the ‘seeds’, so to speak, of the bacteria—are already there after a year. The amount increases with time.
“Occasionally, very rarely, we will get one that is not badly colonized after five or six years but more than 80% of them have such a level of contamination on the inside that you can see it by looking at the implant at a distance of one meter. In some cases the implants are totally black.(6)
He goes on to explain other deleterious effects of breast implants on the body: they have been known to alter the shape of the rib cage, to obstruct cardiovascular and venous function, and to cause serious and permanent damage to the chest musculature and wall.(6)
A Shady History of Experimenting on Women
The first attempts to enlarge breasts were documented about 120 years ago. Initially done by direct injection of fat and paraffin, then polyurethane sponges and numerous other substances, the consequences were terrible and disfiguring. By the 1950′s, doctors in the U.S. began to experiment with silicone injections. {Yes, doctors DO experiment on patients and it is not new!} Complications were widespread: pain, discoloration, edema, ulceration and necrosis, calcification, infections, cysts, disfigurement, loss of the breast, liver dysfunction, adult respiratory distress syndrome, pulmonary embolism, coma, and death. Complications from this type of injection could be fairly immediate. Popularity obviously waned.
Then, around 1960 the first commercially made breast implants became available in the U.S. Dow Corning was one of, if not the first manufacturer. On January 24, 1961 a memo was sent from Ethel Mullison, the Staff Associate from Dow Corning to Dr. Thomas Cronin, one of the first plastic surgeons involved in developing implants. In the memo she states that silicone injected directly into the body caused problems and that even “if enclosed in a silicone bag, the fluids would tend to diffuse out through the walls of the silicone rubber and be absorbed into the tissues.”(6)
Despite this warning, the first silicone breast implants were surgically implanted in 1962 by Dr. Cronin and Dr. Frank Gerow. The following year Dow Corning began to sell their Silastic brand of implants – with no long term testing or monitoring.(6)
So both the doctors and the manufacturers knew the deleterious effects of silicone when inside the human body, both knew the risk and likelihood of implants leaking this dangerous toxin, and yet they together approved the implants for market and sale immediately, bypassing any investigation on the effects to women’s health – or to the health of their unborn children.
Today, Dow Corning faces lawsuits from nearly 500,000 women worldwide, although the company was already bankrupted by 19,000 – 20,000 lawsuits against it in 1995. The lawsuits began as early as the 1970′s. Plaintiffs testified that their implants caused them a myriad of health problems: autoimmune diseases, connective tissue diseases, arthritic conditions, chronic fatigue, and more.
520,000+ women sue because they are sick, but the FDA and Health Canada conclude implants are safe!
On their website, the FDA states: “FDA’s mission is to assure that the products that we approve are safe and effective, and that includes breast implants.”
However, the McLarty Law Firm website tells us that breast implant manufacturers “have refused to comply with the law requiring them to prove that the implants are safe and effective” and that their “own documents reveal a calculated cover up and campaign of deceit on the safety of silicone implants.”(7) Specifically, they point to:
But this should come as no surprise. In 2005 an Expert Advisory Panel was established to help advise Health Canada in the decision on breast implants. However, the Canadian Medical Association Journal pointed out that 3 of the panel members had either worked for, or accepted money from, implant companies Inamed and Mentor. Coincidentally, these were the companies whose products were under review.(6)
According to Dr. Edward Mellmad, a Dallas Surgeon,
Most plastic surgeons vehemently deny any connection between health complaints and leaking silicone implants. But I have seen a disturbing number of patients with symptoms, including fatigue, short-term memory loss, joint and muscle pains, skin rashes, disturbed sleep patterns, depression and hair loss, that clear up when implants are removed.
Last year, I completed a review of the last 500 gel implant removals I performed, and found that more than half the women had similar symptoms, ranging from mild to debilitating. According to the manufacturers’ own literature, one in four women has additional surgery within the first year. Many women have multiple surgeries.(8)
FDA: approve it now, get the research later!
Apparently, it was so much fun the first time, the FDA has decided to have a go at it again! Despite the thousands of women who claim to be suffering tremendously from the adverse side effects of silicone breast implants, and despite all the evidence that manufacturer safety claims have been bogus or intentionally biased, the FDA has approved new silicone implants for limited use, allowing some 80,000 women to be used as guinea pigs by the manufacturers over a 10 year period. But, according to experience we know that most implants do not usually rupture until after 10th year, unless there is trauma. (8) A study would be far more telling if it were conducted by an outside, unaffiliated medical group, following women for 20 years. The way it’s set up, it’s rather convenient for the manufacturers, don’t you think? Now, rather than being sued for false claims of safety when the devices fail and the women and children become sick they can say, “You knew it was experimental. We didn’t make any safety claims.”
Ironically, silicone testicular implants are still banned because there is not enough research to ensure they are safe.
But, in the end, what difference does it make if breast implants harm women or children? They still get paid!
As relayed by Dr. Bernard M. Patten, MD, FACP, FRSM, who has a long history with breast implants:
At Baylor I made friends with Dr. Frank Gerow, one of the two inventors of the silicone breast implant. Frank explained that he and Cronin wanted to do something with plastic surgery that would match the artificial heart the Dr. Michael Debakey was working on, something that would draw national attention to themselves the way NASA, situated only 40 miles south of Baylor, got national attention…
Because direct injection gave awful results, Gerow and Cronin decided to enclose the silicone in a elastomer bag and put the bag into the breast area to make big breasts. A lot of people thought the idea absurd, almost obscene, but it did give the promise of what some women wanted and it was quick giving immediate results. Of course, there were lots of problems with the surgery including infections and herniation of the implant through the incisions and multiple redoes because the implant had ruptured or shifted or had developed a baseball hard capsule or the woman wanted still larger and larger breasts and so forth. But the local complications Gerow and Cronin could handle. Besides whether you put implants in or you took them out or you changed them, the surgeon still got paid.”(9)
Food for thought.
Breast Implant Support Forum. http://www.breastimplantsupport.org/view_topic.php?id=1747&forum_id=5
Scotsman.com: “Scots ‘victim’ begs MSPs for breast implant ban http://www.scotsman.com/scotland/Scots-39victim39-begs-MSPs-.6643940.jp
Multiple Links to Information. http://www.toxicbreastimplants.org/relatedarticles.htm
FDA Site: Medical Devices: Breast Implants http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/ImplantsandProsthetics/BreastImplants/UCM064382
Articles Base. History of Implants. Dr. Mai Brooks. http://www.articlesbase.com/plastic-surgeries-articles/history-of-breast-implants-794934.html
Notes shared by women on their plastic surgeries http://plasticsurgeryphotos.blogspot.com/2007/09/breast-reductionimplants-gone-wrong.html
(1) The Free Library: “My silicone breast implants ruined my little boy’s life” http://www.thefreelibrary.com/My+silicone+breast+implants+ruined+my+little+boy%27s+life-a061015331
(2) The Free Library: “Did breast implants poison my children?” http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Did+breast+implants+poison+my+children%3F+Main+problem+areas-a0110682579
(3) The Free Library: “Mother sues over transplants that left baby ill”
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/MOTHER+SUES+OVER+TRANSPLANTS+THAT+%22left+baby+ill%22.-a0110683815
(4) Shirleys’ Wellness Cafe http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/breast-implants.htm
(5) The Naked Truth About Breast Implants From Harm to Healing. Dr. Susan Kolb, M.D. http://www.labiaplastysurgeon.com/books/breast-implant-truth-book.html
(6) Implant Truth, Julie Chadwick http://www.implanttruth.jshood.com/article.html
(7) McLarty Firm http://www.maryalice.com/cases/implants.asp
(8) Silicone Implants: Information You Should Know Before You Get Them, Not After http://siliconebreastimplant.homestead.com/
(9) Dr. Bernard’s quote is taken from a letter of his: “Memoir of a Junk Scientist” describing the entire ordeal from his own experiences as a doctor within the system. You can find the letter at: http://siliconebreastimplant.homestead.com/Photo_Gallery.html
Posted by Nonie De Long on December 1, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/breast-implants-harm-children-mothers-say/
This article is not mine. It is copied directly and reprinted from: Mental Health: It’s Life, Not Depression
(NaturalNews) November 2008 – Dr. Julian Whitaker’s Health & Healing, Vol. 18, No. 11
Mental Health: It’s Life, Not Depression
Sharon’s husband was diagnosed with cancer, and they were looking at months of chemo and radiation. She was worried, had trouble sleeping, and found it hard to stay positive and upbeat for her husband. When she mentioned this to her doctor, he prescribed an antidepressant.
Laura was exhausted after the birth of her second child. Unlike her first baby, this one was fussy and rarely slept more than two hours at a stretch. On bad days, Laura questioned her ability to cope. She talked her symptoms over with her doctor and was prescribed an antidepressant.
Elizabeth, a bright and outgoing college student, would often wake up during the night worrying about one thing or another. One night, she awoke in a full-blown panic attack, her heart pounding so hard that she was sure she was going to die. She visited the campus infirmary the next day and was given a prescription for an antidepressant.
Thirteen-year-old Matt had just changed schools and was having a hard time adjusting to his new surroundings. His parents took him to see a psychiatrist, who-you guessed it-gave him an antidepressant.
Without question, Sharon, Laura, Elizabeth, and Matt were going through some tough times. But we all go through rough patches-it’s part of being human. So how in the world did we arrive at such a place where normal emotions and reactions to life’s events warrant treatment with drugs?
Let Them Eat Prozac
According to David Healy, MD, professor at Wales’ Cardiff University, we can blame it on the drug companies. Dr. Healy is a conventional psychiatrist, but his well-documented and vocal criticisms about the safety and overuse of Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants set him apart from his colleagues.
In his book Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression, Dr. Healy describes Prozac as a drug in search of a disease. It was the first SSRI to hit the market back in 1988, and, thanks to aggressive marketing, sales of antidepressants quadrupled in just two years. As Prozac’s popularity soared, it was joined by Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox, and others like them.
Then Pandora’s Box of direct-to-consumer advertising opened. Before long, drug company propaganda had people believing that unhappiness, anxiety, shyness, stress, obsessive thoughts, PMS, “baby blues,” and other normal emotional reactions are diseases that can-and should-be treated with a pill. Patients started asking their doctors for prescriptions, and sales went through the roof.
Depression took on a whole new meaning. No longer was it limited to major depression, a clinical diagnosis marked by extreme emotional pain and inability to function. Mild-to-moderate depression has become a catchall diagnosis that will be slapped on one in four Americans at some point in their lives.
Inventing Illness, Selling Drugs
Today, 4 percent of men and 10 percent of women in this country are taking antidepressants. The bulk of the prescriptions for these meds are written by primary care physicians, not psychiatrists, and most of these “depressed” patients receive no other treatment or follow-up. In fact, the drugs seem to be handed out indiscriminately. The Centers for Disease Control reported that, after nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), antidepressants are the most frequently prescribed of all classes of drugs!
Dr. Healy describes this mess as “wholesale creation of depression on so extraordinary and unwarranted a scale as to raise grave questions about whether pharmaceutical and other health care companies are more wedded to making profits from health than contributing to it.”
If this sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve heard me harping on this concept of “inventing illness” for over 20 years. Most of the ballyhoo about high cholesterol, ADHD, fibromyalgia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and even high blood sugar and blood pressure is fueled by market-driven campaigns designed to do one thing: sell more drugs.
But the antidepressant story may be the worst of them all. As I will show you, these drugs do not work, they have the potential of inflicting tremendous harm-and, worst of all, the drug companies have known this for decades.
Antidepressants Don’t Work…
Earlier this year, researchers evaluated published and unpublished pre-approval clinical trials that compared SSRI drugs with placebos. They combined the results in a meta-analysis and came up with some disturbing findings. SSRI antidepressants work no better than placebo, and their benefits do not meet the criteria for clinical significance.
For patients with moderate depression, SSRIs were a complete bust. The differences in improvement between people with severe depression taking a drug and those on placebo were virtually nonexistent. The sole group in which the drugs outperformed the placebo consisted of the most severely depressed patients, but the researchers concluded that this small difference was probably due to “decreased responsiveness to placebo… rather than to increased responsiveness to medication.” (The placebo response in these studies was very high. An average of 80 percent of study participants felt better taking sugar pills.)
…And They Kill People
In addition to being ineffective, SSRIs are dangerous. They cause sexual dysfunction, weight gain, emotional apathy, headaches, insomnia, and gastrointestinal (GI) upset, and they have been linked with GI and uterine bleeding. But their most alarming side effect is an increased risk of suicide, hostility, akathisia (extreme agitation), and violent behavior.
Thousands of suicides, senseless murders, and other random acts of violence have been committed by people who were taking SSRIs. Michael McDermott went to work with an AK-47-type rifle, a shotgun, and a semiautomatic pistol, and killed seven of his coworkers. Kip Kinkel murdered his parents then went to school where he killed two and wounded 22 of his fellow students. Kristine Cushing used a .38-caliber pistol to shoot and kill her two young daughters while they slept; she then shot and wounded herself. Seung-Hui Cho went on a murderous rampage that resulted in 33 deaths and dozens of injuries.
At greatest risk are our children. The instigators of virtually all of the tragic school murder/suicides in recent years were taking an antidepressant or other psychotropic drugs. The same goes for more personal family tragedies, such as uncharacteristic suicides, self-harm, and violent behaviors that rip families apart.
Last year, I met Mathy Downing, the mother of Candace Downing, a beautiful, exuberant 12-year-old honor student who had been put on Zoloft for “generalized anxiety disorder.” A few months later, Mathy found her daughter dead, hanging above her bed. Just an hour before, she’d been watching Animal Planet on TV with her father.
Authorities in Great Britain have openly opposed the use of antidepressants in young people. The FDA, on the other hand, has decided only to require a black box warning label stating that these drugs increase risk of suicidal behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults. Sales have fallen off a little but remain strong. This is yet another example of the failure of the FDA, blinded by their incestuous relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, to protect the public.
“Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”
You’re probably wondering how in the world such awful drugs generate $16.9 billion annually in global sales. I’ll tell you. It’s because the companies that push these pills have made a concerted and successful effort to deceive physicians and patients.
A 2008 study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, examined the results of 74 drug company-sponsored clinical trials on antidepressants. It turns out that of the 38 studies with positive outcomes, 37 were published. However, 33 of the 36 studies with negative outcomes were either not published or they were reported in a way that “conveyed a positive outcome.”
The drug companies also knew about the deadly side effects of SSRIs. Internal Eli Lilly documents, which date back to 1988 and were part of a product liability suit filed against the company in 1994, show that the company was aware Prozac conferred a 12-fold greater risk of suicide attempts than other antidepressants. The document also stated that the drug was associated with hostile behavior and that it more than doubled the risk of psychotic depression. What did they do with this knowledge? Nothing.
In an editorial in the September 3, 2008, issue of JAMA, Marcia Angell, MD, had this to say about pharmaceutical company-sponsored research: “Physicians can no longer rely on the medical literature for valid and reliable information. This is the conclusion I reluctantly reached toward the end of my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, and it has been reinforced in subsequent years. Clinicians just do not know anymore how safe and effective prescription drugs really are, but these products are probably nowhere near as good as the published literature indicates.”
Life Isn’t Always Easy
Folks, drugs aren’t the answer. Most of the people treated with antidepressants are simply dealing with emotional upheavals in their lives, such as divorces, layoffs, and other losses. It’s normal to be “sad and gloomy; dejected; downcast” (the definition of depressed) every once in a while. But it isn’t clinical depression (defined as “so severe as to be considered abnormal, either because of no obvious environmental causes, or because the reaction to unfortunate life circumstances is more intense or prolonged than would generally be expected”).
Life isn’t always pretty. Puberty is tough. Our hearts get broken. Marriage isn’t all smooth sailing. Divorce happens. Teenagers drive you crazy. Work isn’t necessarily fun. Financial difficulties crop up. People get sick. Loved ones die. But the reality is, we have to use whatever tools we have to pull ourselves together and work through it.
Faith, religion, meditation, friends, family, and counseling can help you weather grief, worry, change, and other aspects of the human condition. Regular exercise is an excellent mood lifter, and a diet containing minimal amounts of starches and sugar prevents drops in blood sugar levels that can affect mood. Correcting hormone imbalances, particularly those involving thyroid, adrenal, and sex hormones, also makes a big difference.
So does a good nutritional supplement program. Omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies are associated with depression, so take six to eight fish oil capsules daily. SAMe (200-400 mg) and St. John’s wort (900 mg) are proven mood enhancers, and vitamin B12 (1,000 mcg), magnesium (500-1,000 mg), and zinc (30-50 mg) are also helpful. All of these supplements should be taken daily in divided doses.
Postscript
I want to close with an update on the people I told you about in the opening of this story.
Sharon, who started taking Luvox after her husband got sick, is still taking it nine years later. The drug doesn’t make her feel all that great, and she’s gained weight and has zero libido-common side effects of these drugs. But like so many others, she’s afraid she’ll feel worse if she stops taking it.
Laura, the young mother with the fussy baby, decided not to fill her prescription. Within a few weeks, the baby started sleeping six hours a night, and she was able to get more rest. Today, she feels great.
Elizabeth stayed on Paxil for five years-a time of her life she describes as going through “like a zombie.” After learning about the downside of antidepressants, she started taking multivitamins, fish oil, and other supplements while slowly weaning herself off the drug. She’s recently married and couldn’t be happier.
And 13-year-old Matt? He hanged himself in his closet one week after starting Paxil.
Posted by Nonie De Long on November 19, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/antidepressants-dont-work-studies-show/
Milk does the body good, right?
As every conventional doctor I’ve ever seen tells me, dairy products are essential for healthy bones – particularly for women as they age. Given that the International Osteoporosis Foundation tells us that 1 in 4 Canadian women over 50 will experience osteoporotic fractures, many of which they will not recover fully from, it seems an important issue to address when we discuss women’s health.
Does milk do the body good?
Well, we know that bone health is determined by density. When bones lose density and become porous, we call this osteoporosis. This loss of bone density leads to fractures that can be debilitating and even fatal, often affecting essential bones like the hip and the spine. And, in North America, the incidence of osteoporotic fractures is steadily on the rise.
When we look at countries comparatively, as did researchers at Yale University, they found a direct relationship between diary and meat consumption and osteoporosis risk. “The countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis were those that consumed the most meat and milk.” http://www.milksucks.com/osteo.asp It is also well documented that populations (like parts of Asia) that do not consume as much dairy and meat have much lower rates of osteoporotic fractures.
If that doesn’t make you reconsider the bone benefits of dairy, consider this:
“Harvard University’s landmark Nurses Health Study, which followed 78,000 women over a 12-year period, found that the women who consumed the most calcium from dairy foods broke more bones than those who rarely drank milk. Summarizing this study, the Lunar Osteoporosis Update (November 1997) explained: “This increased risk of hip fracture was associated with dairy calcium. … If this were any agent other than milk, which has been so aggressively marketed by dairy interests, it undoubtedly would be considered a major risk factor.”” http://www.milksucks.com/osteo.asp\
Yet other studies report that leafy greens more positively affect bone health than does dairy intake. And over and over studies show that vegan children who eat zero animal products have greater bone density than do most meat and dairy consuming kids.
The dairy industry is a multi-billion dollar CASH COW!
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand why the public does not get this information from the food and drug administrative bodies or any similar health agency – the dairy industry is a multibillion-dollar cash cow whose influence is bullish to overturn. This is a prime example of why CITIZENS (I refuse to be reduced to a CONSUMER) absolutely have to educate themselves about health issues. Wisdom that past generations inherently knew and passed down has been lost because we are now so far removed from our food supply. While our children think milk from a grocer is normal, my grandparent’s parents would have known whose animals it came from if they purchased it. They did not need scientific studies to understand that milk which is homogenized and pasteurized and which comes from mistreated cattle that are fed unnatural feed and medications would not be health-giving foods.
The reasons are complex. First, the milk is contaminated because it has been created by animals that are mistreated and misfed, loaded with toxins and kept in an emotionally toxic environment. The milk contains bacteria, antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and the energy of a scared, abused animal. Second, the milk contains none of its natural vitamins, enzymes, or beneficial bacteria because it is heated to extremely high temperatures to kill these (commercial dairy is so contaminated with pus and bacteria this has to happen to keep from getting sick from it). However, this process robs the milk of its natural vitamins and synthetic vitamins are added back in in nominal amounts to boost health claims. Third, the fat within the milk is broken down into unnaturally small molecules that cause all kinds of digestive distress and allergy related problems because they are not recognizable to our bodies for what they are. They wreak havoc on immune systems and create a number of health problems. Lastly, this dairy is acidifying to the body, as are meat and wheat products, and these eventually imbalance the body to be too acidic. An acidic body is a body that leaches minerals from the bone marrow to maintain pH. Thus, the bones are robbed of density just to survive. Rather than building bones, this food places them at greater risk for osteoporosis.
Calcium alone does not make strong bones!
Another factor in the growing trend of osteoporosis in Canadians is the lack of sunlight we get. There are certain months of the year in Canada where not much of our bodies can be exposed to sun and when we can be exposing ourselves we have been frightened by bad science not to. Thus, we are often not producing the vitamin D levels needed to utilize the calcium that is in the diet. Furthermore, the magnesium that is needed to use calcium properly has largely been mined from the soil and is not abundant in the foods we eat. Thus the calcium that is available to the body can not be used properly to sustain the bones. Vitamins D and magnesium are both essential for utilizing the calcium we take in. When I tell this to people in consultation, they can quickly become overwhelmed because every nutritional deficit has both a vitamin or mineral to alleviate the deficit and a list of co-factors to utilize that vitamin or mineral. But we don’t need to be overwhelmed. We know that whole foods contain many vitamins and minerals which work together synergistically in our bodies. Absorbing calcium is as simple as getting it from leafy greens, getting a good amount of direct sunlight (or high quality sunlight bulbs) every day, and eating magnesium rich foods or a supplement.
If one wants to supplement for bone health, the best options are vitamin D3 (I take 2000IU a day), and a combination of calcium and magnesium (either 2:1 cal mag or 1:1 depending on personal needs) along with weight bearing exercises. The best calcium and magnesium I have found is orotate (available only online as far as I know in the Toronto area) and ascorbate and aspartate following that. Of course, leafy greens and green superfoods are excellent sources of calcium, often containing the minerals needed for proper assimilation. Cutting back on meat and dairy and wheat means that the minerals a person takes in can be used for healing rather than buffering a toxic body. My preference for a green product is called Greens + Daily Detox (in the apple flavour) and I consume it in my water throughout the day. However, because of bio-individuality, I recommend consulting a holistic nutritionist to determine the best plan for you. While there is a lot of info online, it can be difficult to sort through without some direction at first.
For more info on the abuse of dairy cows go to:
http://www.milkmyths.org.uk/report/sufferingsilence.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/26/conklin-dairy-farms-video_n_589826.html
Posted by Nonie De Long on November 15, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/calcium-and-osteoporosis-what-the-dairy-industry-does-not-want-you-to-know/
Diabetes: now an epidemic!
Everybody knows somebody with diabetes today. It has become a North American epidemic that costs the health care system billions annually. What your doctor probably won’t tell you if you or a family member is diagnosed with type II diabetes, is that it is treatable without drugs and can be reversed by diet and lifestyle changes.
American pharmacist, Suzy Cohen, explains exactly how to do it in her new book:
In fact, there are a myriad of books to help you learn about how to reverse blood sugar problems naturally:
Blood Sugar 101: What They Don’t Tell You About Diabetes
Why isn’t your doctor giving you this info?
But why, if there exists so much literature on reversing diabetes and controlling blood sugar naturally, do doctors continue to medicate for it without giving patients this information?
Answer 1: They have no clue that a natural therapy exists. I found all these books within three minutes on amazon, but a licensed physician is incapable of this and cannot possibly be expected to keep up on the therapies that treat health concerns that have become public epidemics.
Answer 2: They have some interest in selling drugs rather than healing people.
Answer 3: They are not allowed to prescribe natural therapies even if they are aware of them and know them to work and even if they know drugs to be dangerous alternatives. Or, they are monitored to ensure they are prescribing drugs and not natural therapies, in which case they can be kicked out of the college of physicians and surgeons.
The dark truth is that I have spoken candidly with a physician turned naturopath who claims the last answer to be true. I have consulted with my own physician which would confirm that answer 1 is true, and I don’t see how number 3 can be true without number 2 being true, because the college of physicians and surgeons would have no interest in policing prescriptions if it were not.
Are you going to trust your doctor with your health rather than doing your own research?
Posted by Nonie De Long on November 9, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/control-diabetes-naturally/
From my own experiences I want to share with you today the very first step in treating children (or adults) ‘diagnosed’ as suffering from ADHD or any other so called mental illness. This applies to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders also. Change the diet.
Here is a step by step guide to how to do it.
Start with the diet, not drugs!
If this is all you have strength to do, you will still witness a very notable improvement. That means breakfast is not cereal (sugar laden) or a bar or any other pre-made food. It is not pancakes or waffles or toast with sweets. It contains no store made juices. There should be no fruit for the first while. We are stabilizing blood sugar to discern if that is the problem. If you are ready for the next steps, here they are.
Diet Tips:
If this protocol is followed and the child (patient) is not improved in three months time, (this is very unlikely, since everyone I know who has done this has improved greatly) you will need to also do this:
If these are out of your income bracket, my suggestion is to go to Orthomed.org and become your own doctor. You can also go to doctoryourself.com and naturalnews.com to learn how to be your own doctor. There is nobody I have met or heard from who has tried these suggestions and NOT been made much better as a result. For ASD consult Jenny McCarhty’s site also.
Namaste! Prepare yourself for healing!
Posted by Nonie De Long on October 30, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/first-step-with-children-labeled-adhd-or-otherwise-mentally-ill/
My own experiences have convinced me without a doubt that physicians today are being used as puppets for mass scale chemical testing on human subjects. I say puppets because I am hesitant to believe that all doctors are aware of the role they play in the larger pharmaceutical agenda. But some are no doubt very aware.
My son’s health problems began after a vaccination when he was a baby. He was ill, with ear infections and a fever. His gait and interaction changed thereafter and his health further deteriorated after long term antibiotic use to ‘treat’ his ear infections. The antibiotics did not work. The ear infections did not clear until he aged and the Eustachian tubes opened up, about the age of 4. But during that time I witnessed him change from a healthy, happy infant to a frustrated, violent, and morbid toddler with obsessive behaviours, body rashes, chronic diarrhea, and mood swings. His speech was impaired, and he learned slowly. He did not hear or understand what he heard properly. He was labeled defiant by educators and one physician. Many medical and social work professionals I turned to treated me like I had caused his problems through abuse because of his fixation with gore and violence: he would draw surreal photos of murder for hours at a time, with detailed explanations of frightening inner imaginings. It was isolating and scary for me.
But different doctors gave him a different diagnosis!
At age 5 a doctor labeled him ADHD. At age 7 he was diagnosed bipolar and defiant. By age 9 he was diagnosed schizophrenic. At age 11 he was diagnosed with high functioning autism (PDD NOS), with a history of bipolar. When I asked the doctor why his diagnosis changed so much, since these were all supposed to be lifetime disabilities, she told me it is very hard to diagnose children because they change and grow. She then dismissed the schizophrenic diagnosis because it was given by Dr. Abram Hoffer, whom she said was not a real psychiatrist. However, he was. And a biochemist. What caused the defamatory reputation was that Dr. Hoffer treated his patients with orthomolecular medicine, or high doses of vitamins, and with dietary restrictions. His was the only treatment that proved effective for my son. But Dr. Hoffer did not believe mental illness was anything more than low grade pellagra and other nutritional deficiencies. It did not make him popular with his peers.
Prior to meeting Dr. Hoffer my son was hospitalized often for violent behaviour. He also had episodes of absence seizures and overheating. The hospitals’ solution was to indiscriminately medicate him. Did you know that in Canada a parent may not refuse a treatment for a child admitted to a psychiatric facility while the child remains in that facility? And, a parent may not remove a child from that facility if she disagrees with the treatment? The child must be discharged by the physician. There are no patient or parent rights. I discovered this the hard way.
In these hospitals I observed my son transition from an active, engaged boy to a zombie, walking into walls, soiling himself, and forgetting his name on some of these drugs.
On others I witnessed him trembling so badly he could not hold utensils to eat. On others I witnessed him behave like he was drunk, with no inhibitions, only to plunge into deep depression the day after. Others kept him from sleeping, or caused his heart to race. Only one psychiatrist of at least a dozen ever read me the side effects of the drugs she prescribed, which is legally a part of informed consent. I was labeled uncooperative because I refused many of the medications at home and in treatment centers where I had input. And when he did try anything new I insisted that he use one drug at a time, with charts to monitor his health. With these charts I monitored his progress and side effects. I never found a drug that caused noticeable improvement without extreme negative side effects.
Nursing and support staff felt the drugs improved my son – every drug, in fact, but in order to discern the bias of their opinions I decided to do my own test.
I consulted with the physician in private and stopped a particular medication that my son had been receiving with glowing reviews. There were a few very troubling side effects and I wanted to see if they stopped when the dosage stopped. I explained that if his improved behaviour was a result of the drug and not his natural cycle (very predictable by then), we would together look at the options after the trial. I did not inform the staff who worked with my son that the drug was stopped and apparently they did not notice the difference in the medications they were giving him. At the next case meeting, about three weeks later, they reported how wonderful my son’s response to this new drug was. They had a long list of the improvements they had seen. Then I informed them that the drug had been stopped three weeks earlier, with the doctor’s consent. She subsequently affirmed this. Staff at that agency were so infuriated that they called the Children’s Aide Society (CAS) and told them I had taken my son off a drug the doctor advised. It was later used against me although it was false since I had consulted with the doctor from the onset.
I was routinely told my son needed a ‘cocktail’ of medications. I was astonished that other parents found this acceptable. At one point my son was taken from me by the CAS when I refused these treatments and demanded more holistic in-home and community supports to support him.
I was told by my case manager (social worker) that “unfortunately this needs to happen before anything gets done!” A lawyer subsequently told me “it happens all the time!”
While my son continued the prescribed treatments he became worse and worse. I witnessed this in parent support groups also. Parents were told that this worsening was the nature of the disorders that our children had and it was unrelated to the drugs. I was told that my son’s depression was a result of his bipolar. However, when I insisted that the drug be removed his depression stopped. What surprised me about this was that the doctor did not put this in my son’s file.
The doctor noted that I requested to remove the drug but not that my decision resulted in an improvement and that depression was a result of the drug.
I was also surprised to learn that this doctor did not share my son’s treatment protocol (the vitamins) with any other parent, despite the fact that my son had improved drastically and consistently for over a year.
Furthermore, my son was the only child in the care of that doctor who did not have signs of organ damage or abnormal blood and urinary tests, according to the regular testing they did. The doctor told me this. However, no other parent was told of Dr. Hoffer’s treatment that was more effective and more safe. If it had been a drug that had caused that improvement it would have been shared enthusiastically. Because it was not a drug it was not shared at all.
This was a turning point in my understanding of psychiatry, which was confirmed later that year.
During a hospitalization that was precipitated by police threatening and terrifying my son, a doctor who saw him said he saw no evidence of mental health problems and asked me to confirm his diagnoses. I did so. The doctor, a psychiatrist, then proceeded to accuse me of making it up, since my son showed no signs at the time. First of all, anyone with any experience of these things knows that mental health episodes are cyclic, and that they come and go. One day will be high functioning and the next day will be a write off. So this did not make sense to me. I reiterated my son’s diagnoses and the diagnosing physicians and dates.
I told the doctor that my son was asymptomatic since starting the Hoffer protocol of vitamins. The doctor then bristled and smugly told me that true psychiatrists do not accept that treatment protocol and if it was used effectively my son had never actually had mental illness because they had determined that it did not work!
How is that for scientific thinking!
So if you deny that something can be an effective treatment and yet it treats or cures the disorder effectively, that leads us to conclude that the disorder never existed in the first place! It could not have existed if it was treated effectively by means that the psychiatric association does not endorse! At the time I remember thinking, “I would very much like to try some of the drugs this guy is taking!”(It had been a hard day!)
Except that he was actually pointing out a deeper truth that he no doubt, did not realize: mental illness does not exist.
Bipolar, schizophrenia, and ADHD are not legitimate disorders. I get PMS at times. It is not an illness or disorder. My shoulder right now is cramped like a tennis ball. It is not tennis ball shoulder disorder. Soldiers and children of alcoholics suffer post traumatic stress disorder (the symptoms exactly matching those of bipolar, by the way), as a result of the trauma they have endured. That does not make it a legitimate illness.
An illness or disorder of the body can be shown in the blood, in the urine, in the stool, in the other fluids, in the tissue, or in imaging of the body. Psychiatry does not provide any such test to verify it’s diagnoses. In fact, diagnosis is given based on a symptom checklist, and, as you have seen with my son, varies according to each physician you see.
Psychiatry fabricates new ‘disorders’ each year to add to the list of things they can medicate for. Now postpartum depression and anxiety are disorders. And, of course, there is an arsenal of drugs you can swallow to treat these and anything else they can dream up.
The truth is that symptoms are not illnesses. Symptoms point to illness or dysfunction in the body, but they are not the illness. Fever is a symptom of many illnesses. It is not an illness. Likewise, mental health symptomology points us to an underlying problem in the body. It is usually a combination of: heavy metal toxicity, food allergies or sensitivities, malabsorption and malnutrition, and auto-intoxication. Stress can trigger it. Drugs that deplete the body of essential nutrients and which modify the natural healing process of the body actually worsen it, contrary to psychiatric assertions. Blood sugar spikes and lows (an epidemic among North American children now) can cause the symptomology of various mental illnesses. And many children are diagnosed with mental illness simply because they are not getting adequate nutrition.
Psychiatry has a very dark history.
The facts about the history of psychiatry:
The psychiatrists will confess that the drugs DO NOT CURE ANYTHING. They may render the patient more docile, and they do cause brain damage and a whole host of side effects, which the patient will frequently not be advised of. Some of these symptoms are also found in the diagnostic manual as other mental illnesses. Of course, the treatment is to add another drug! If the patient does not like the side effects of the drugs he is labeled non-compliant and can be institutionalized to force him to take the drugs!
You see, once diagnosed with a mental illness a citizen has no rights! That is the beauty of psychiatry. Informed consent is no longer an issue. Indiscriminate testing is thus instituted!
These patients are guinea pigs because they do not have the right other patients have and can be labelled non-compliant and forced to comply with any therapy at any point. If they say they have been mistreated, they can be called paranoid. They can be drugged and imprisioned indefinately. All because one doctor says they should be!
Furthermore, the diagnostic manual changes to include more ‘disorders’ every year. So psychiatry is actually the mass scale testing of brain altering pharmaceuticals. It is Eugenics continued. The disposable population is targeted and used as guinea pigs. And the forcing of vaccinations in the US hails a new era in North America, where not only the sick are targeted, but all children. It is not medicine. It is population control and big business.
That does not mean that all psychiatrists know this and are corrupt. I have met some very well intentioned psychiatrists pushing these drugs, thinking they are helping people. After all, it’s not like contemporary medical school promotes critcal thinking! The journals of medical science hail the research of people like Dr Scott Reuben, the clinical trial researcher who knowingly deceived the public and the FDA by faking at least 21 clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies. Even after it has become public knowledge, doctors continue to prescribe drugs based on his fraudulent claims. At the same time, the medical research papers of two time Nobel Prize Winner, Linus Pauling (chemist, peace activist, writer, educator) are referred to as quackery.
Of course, that’s because Pauling stated that disease starts with the nutrition of the cell. Completely unscientific, of course! How could cellular health have anything at all to do with physical and mental health in a person! Drugs make people’s bodies work properly, not proper nutrition and vitamins!
But if you still don’t believe in government endorsed medical and biological weapons testing on the public, you are probably suffering from ‘disagreeable disorder’. I voted it to be real, so it must be. Now all I need is a medical diploma and I can get rich selling you drugs to make you sicker and need even more drugs…
Or you can read this article. But you may want to meditate or pray to draw strength first. It is not light reading….
http://www.naturalnews.com/022383_research_experiments.html
Research sources for this article:
Eliminating Psychiatric Fraud: The Great Diseased Brain Hoax By Kieron Mcfadden Published: 1/14/2010 http://www.buzzle.com/articles/eliminating-psychiatric-fraud-part-three-the-great-diseased-brain-hoax.html
HISTORY OF THE FRAUD OF BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY (7/19/00) http://www.adhdfraud.org/history_of_the_fraud_of_biological_psychiatry.htm
History of Psychiatry: Industry of Death Museum – Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1d11lMSGgQ
Psychiatry: 60 Years in an Increasingly Corrupt Speciality http://www.encognitive.com
CCHR: The Truth About Psychiatry http://www.cchr.org/quick-facts/introduction.html
Posted by Nonie De Long on October 28, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/ongoing-government-sanctioned-medical-experiments-on-us/
Today I remembered my tomatoes and became worried. I had forgotten them for a week. The first garden fresh, local tomatoes I have laid my hands on all summer and in all the hubub of my son’s 16th birthday celebration I forgot the ones I did not consume right away! Being unable to bring myself to refrigerate fruit (eating cold fruit akin to torture for me), I realized them when I spotted the bright red in the basket on the table as I sat for breakfast. And was seized by dread. I picked one up, expecting the worst. I rolled it in my hand, looking for the rot where it had been touching other fruit. Astonished, I realized there was none. The skin was firm and taught, and there was no give and no spots. I was overcome with relief. And excitement. Then rage as the reality of it sunk in.
You see, I LOVE fresh tomatoes. I know other people delight in the taste of sweet fruit or melons, but for me the king of fruit is the humble tomato. I can not go two days without eating tomato in something. Or everything. As the mood strikes.
Of course, I already knew there would be no rot if I had been thinking. If my brain was not stunted from all this shit they try to sell us as fruit at the grocers. This is when the rage set in.
Like you, I have been led to believe that the reason produce is genetically modified is because it lasts longer, which is increasingly necessary as fruit is produced further from home. Shelf life, I think it’s called. It certainly isn’t for taste. Anyone who has had a fresh garden grown tomato and a grocery store ‘field tomato’ or even a premium ‘vine ripened tomato’ (which smells pretty close to the real deal) can tell you there is no comparison in flavour. Not even close. What created the anger in me was realizing that the garden fresh tomato lasted 3 times longer than a grocery store GMO tomato without refrigeration!
As I said, for me it is blasphemy to refrigerate a tomato. They go on the window sill until they are ripe, then into the basket on the table. They are eaten as apples are, and sliced as onions are for sandwiches or as appetizers, and eaten every day for a month when the season comes around. But not until they are cooked do they ever see the interior of the refrigerator and then only if some are left over. So I am well versed in how long the tomatoes I get from the grocer are lasting in the basket – one day or two at most. And each of those tomatoes is mushy. It is not ripe, with green flesh inside, no matter the external colour or the firmness on purchasing, but yet it is mushy and starting to ‘go’.
Similarly I splurged and got a bag of organic Macintosh apples. Two bags actually. Two months ago when they were on sale. The lady at the checkout tried to dissuade me, point out that they had spots on them. Having grown up on a farm, I recall real apples. They, too, had spots on them. I smiled and purchased them anyway.
I finished the last apple a week ago. It was firm, crisp, juicy, and fragrant. It was not overly sweet, but not tart either. A perfect ripe Mac.
I also had a bag of golden delicious apples – a beautiful golden colour, which I purchased roughly two weeks ago. Non organic. They had seemed firm at the time. My son prefers the sweeter or more mellow apples. The one I had by the end of last week was mushy and soft. Both bags of apples were refrigerated. The non-organic ones needed to be cooked after a week and a half to be edible and even then were not fresh tasting.
So from what I can discern, GMO produce does not stay fresh longer either in or out of the refrigerator. In fact, it goes bad much faster. And the taste is far inferior. I had to throw away celery I bought last month because it tasted so badly of chemicals! Hence began my venturing into the realm of organic. Me, the frugal one, purchasing produce at that cost! But my experience is pushing me forward: less waste (none actually), better flavour (a hundred times), better texture of fruit (not even comparable), and superior shelf life.
So why in hell are they selling us this GMO produce?
As far as I can tell, the answer is not a nice one. It is not because of shelf life, is not because of taste or texture, and is not because of nutrition (there are studies that show that GMO food is not recognized by the body). It is also not in the public interest to privatize ownership of crop seeds so wh…
Could the answer be that sinister? Could the reason be just to privatize the ownership of seeds so we cannot sustain ourselves? Surely that is part of the whole picture but is it the driving factor? I mean, who funds the research for GMO foods? Private companies, right? So why would private companies pour research dollars into foods to modify them? For profit. Well, a monopoly would create a profit and so would greater spoilage. As does lowered nutritional value, since we crave food when we are nutritionally deficient. Longer shelf life certainly wouldn’t create profit. Better nutritional value certainly wouldn’t.
I am left not knowing for sure what is the driving motive behind GMO foods other than profit, but the taste and waste coupled with the possibilities is enough to spur me to be purchasing more from local sustainable farms or certified organic. And I’ll be conducting more tests as I go. I challenge you to try the tomato or apple test and see for yourself if the results I got are duplicated. You really have nothing to lose… but your health… and the health of your children and their ability to access wholesome foods if the privatization of foods is a success…
Does anyone know sustainable farmers to recommend to people around the GTA?
Posted by Nonie De Long on August 31, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/gmo-foods-why-are-we-being-fed-them-really/
Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows that carbs like white rice and white flour are definite No No’s. Anyone who has developed diabetes or chronic mood and energy swings should consider them as dangerous as heroine to a junkie. They are loaded with empty calories, which are calories that have been stripped of their micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, enzymes, anti-oxidants, essential fatty acids, etc).
Calories are not the demons they have been made out to be, and high caloric food – if it is also high in nutrients – can be very conducive to weight loss, despite years of a bad reputation. It is the micronutrients, found naturally in whole foods, that cause them to be nutritious for us and which clean up the cells and blood and help us build a healthier body. When stripped of these micronutrients, foods actually deplete the body in order to be digested and assimilated. Think of a bank book. If we eat this nutritionally empty food we run a deficit in terms of nutrients. And, we thus crave more and more – because our bodies are not getting the nourishment they truly crave from the food.
Unfortunately, this is true of the Standard North American Diets (SAD). And without these micronutrients, the cells in our bodies break down, oxidize, and become dysfunctional. Inflammation, pain, low stamina, poor memory and concentration, mood swings, mental health problems, attention problems, chronic illness – ACTUALLY ALMOST ALL ILLNESS – is a result of the cells in the body not getting the right combination of nutrients for optimal health.
Before you get overwhelmed, let me tell you it’s not rocket science (which, I have heard, is not really that tough, but meh, let’s stay on topic). And before you promise to buy whole grain foods the next time you go shopping, whole wheat bread and pasta, and maybe brown rice, listen to what I am going to say next. Brown bread and pasta are not foods for optimal health. Brown rice can be healthy, but depends. And if you are going to make a lifestyle change for the purpose of health, don’t you want to make changes that are going to give you the best results? Let me tell you why I disagree with many dietitians on the nutritional value of these foods.
While it’s true that the bran of the wheat and rice grain (of all grains really) is the nutritional powerhouse of the grain, there are some other factors to consider here. First, let’s look at wheat. The grain used for modern wheat is so hybridized that many people cannot digest it. It was the first genetically modified food – about 8000 years ago (around the time of the transition to an agrarian (grain based) vs the traditional paleolithic (hunter-gatherer based diet) and in recent years has been excessively modified. Even farmers who tried to protect their crops could not keep them from cross pollination and contamination. Original wheat is no longer cultivated. It does not exist. There is research to support the evidence that a grain based diet was the harbinger of a myriad of health problems not seen prior, including diabetes and many inflammatory diseases, and we also know that many people cannot digest components of the wheat grain in particular.
We can see this around us. Have you not noticed the amount of people around you that suffer from Celiac’s? And it is likely that many people suffer without being aware of it – celiac’s and gluten sensitivity can result in such a wide range of symptoms. These symptoms range from chronic depression to chronic inflammation. What about those suffering form Crohn’s Disease? It is also linked to wheat intake, and too often misdiagnosed. People with Autism spectrum disorders are also known to react violently to this food in their systems. And, type 2 diabetes is sky rocketing – also linked to the excessive consumption of empty carbohydrates – of which, wheat, corn, and sugar are the dominant culprits in the SAD diet. You see, wheat has inflammatory properties in the body. And many people do not know that Autism, asthma, ADHD, arthritis, and allergies are all inflammatory diseases. And that is just the A’s! My homeopath jokes, “It’s easy to be a naturopath – just tell everyone to avoid wheat and dairy!” (Processed dairy is the other excessively over-consumed inflammatory food group in the SAD diet.)
So no matter the bran content, wheat is a genetically engineered food stuff. In paleolithic culture, before the advent of agriculture where wheat was first hybridized, grains were foraged and eaten as fresh picked, whole kernels, and as sprouts. And the intake was limited out of necessity, and balanced with vegetables, roots, fruit, and meat. Now we are not only consuming a grain that is not natural, we are consuming it in an unnatural, overly processed form – to excess. Even whole wheat bread and pasta are white flour with nominal amounts of the bran added back in. This is because leaving the bran and the endosperm together after picking the kernels results in rapid rancidity of the essential fatty acids naturally occurring in the bran, as the endosperm contains the enzyme lipase that triggers this process. However, cooking stops the rancidity – but also equally damages the vitamins and essential fatty acids in the endosperm. When we consume whole wheat products we are actually eating a little fibre with our genetically mutated, vitamin deficient, high caloric, inflammatory-causing food stuff.
As if that weren’t enough, wheat also contains opiates (also existing in dairy, FYI), which are substances that cause a sense of well being when we consume them. Wheat is an addiction causing food and moreover, has been shown to promote hyperphagia, or excessive eating. Dr. Lindeberg’s trial where subjects were placed on a paleolithic diet (from the SAD diet), removing all wheat and grains, indicated that when wheat is removed from the diet there is a decrease in appetite and a voluntary decrease in caloric consumption. Furthermore, fasting blood sugar in all subjects was normalized after 12 weeks, when it had been erratic or elevated prior. The results were superior to those of the subjects on a Mediterranean diet!
So, to recap: wheat is genetically modified in the extreme making it grossly difficult to digest, it is addictive, it elevates appetite, it negatively impacts blood glucose regulation, and it is available to us in a very unnatural and unhealthy form. Well, you might say, add the bran back in. But when the bran is added back in the majority of the nutritional benefits of it are then killed by heat in cooking! The only forms of wheat that are bio-compatible with our bodies are sprouted – in which case we use the juice from the grass, or the raw, freshly picked kernels. And consuming the kernels fresh picked may still cause inflammation due to the excessive mutation of the crop species. However, sprouted wheat grass juice is extremely healthy for other reasons we won’t go into today. The bottom line is, do you really want to make all the effort to change your diet just to be eating a little extra fibre in a food t+9hat is still likely to cause a myriad of health problems in the body?
If, like me, you prefer to make your food choices optimal, try Ezekiel bread. It can be found in the gluten free section of Superstore and health food stores, and is made from sprouted grains that are dehydrated and ground up. The grain in this form contains enzymes and micronutrients intact. The bread is safe for those with Celiac sensitivity, while being much healthier than the alternative breads. It does not contain gluten and the resulting opiates, nor does it spike blood sugar, since it is high in protein and fibre. It is an ancient way of bread-making that preserves many nutrients. It has a nice flavour when toasted. I have found it at Superstore and Longos in Toronto, as well as Noah’s and the Big Carrot. My son prefers the Ezekiel English muffins. Many gluten free breads are still created with refined white flours, which spike blood sugar, and nutritionally empty, and create cravings. This is not a satisfactory dietary switch for someone whose digestive system is sensitive already. Alternatively, if removing bread from your diet is an option, the healthiest way to consume wheat is to sprout and chew or juice it. It is considered a superfood because of the nutrients it packs in this form.
But what about rice? Everyone knows brown rice is good for you.
When we look at rice we see that the bran is again the powerhouse of the grain in terms of nutrition. And, again, the rice endosperm contains an enzyme that begins to break down the fatty acids in the bran the moment the grain is picked. This is why brown rice when we get it in the supermarket often has a funny smell to it, especially if it is not consumed immediately or if it has sat on the shelf – usually in plastic – for long. You see, essential fatty acids are very good for health, but they are very sensitive to heat, oxygen, and light, and they therefore go rancid quickly. And, the only thing worse for you than not eating any is – you guessed it – eating them when rancid. So the brown rice you buy to be healthy (and often don’t really enjoy the taste of) is often not as healthy as you hoped.
How can you be sure it hasn’t gone rancid? Well, the process starts as soon as the grain is picked. Therefore, it is begun by the time you purchase it. You have to smell very fresh brown rice and then note the difference to determine how far along it is. But even if you can get it really fresh, the fact is, once you cook it you destroy many of the micronutrients anyway! And, many people I have shared this information with are quite relieved, because they don’t like the taste of brown rice at all.
While I am usually an advocate of whole foods over supplements, in this case I think it’s more beneficial to consume the stabilized rice bran, also called rice bran solubles, for the nutritional benefit of the bran. I am not saying it is superior to whole brown rice as a carbohydrate, but do you really need more carbohydrates in your diet? If you are an athlete, then yes. If you are a person with multiple health problems or digestive related problems or diabetes, the answer is NO! Stabilized rice bran is rice bran that has been extracted and stopped from becoming rancid. It retains the nutritional value of rice bran – the essential fatty acids, and the tocotrienols: a source of full spectrum vitamin E, protein, and over 100 other antioxidants. My advice would be to consume the bran added to meals, uncooked, for optimal nutrition. It does not have a bad flavour and is easy to add to foods. It can, however, be added to baked or cooked foods for nutrition, although it would not be optimal since many nutrients are damaged when heated.
In this case, the preferences of the individual come into play. Again, every person is unique, with unique tastes. If it means fighting your child every night to eat brown rice, save the headache and digestive stress and serve white rice with the bran as a supplement.
When I desire grains for health I choose millet or quinoa, or red rice, which I prefer over brown. I also add sprouted chia seeds to high glycemic meals to aide in glucose stability and recommend it for anyone with diabetes concerns. If a person wanted to eat the brown (or red – a nicer flavour in my opinion) rice rather than supplementing, I would recommend putting it in a glass jar and placing it in the refrigerator or freezer to keep until it is cooked. In this way the oxidation process is stalled and the rice will keep much longer without going rancid.
Another alternative is to consume wild rice (did you know it’s indigenous to Canada?) which is not really a rice at all, but a grass which is actually alkalinizing to the body, unlike most grains. But more on that another day!
This week there is a discount on stabilized rice bran on Natural News. You can find it here:
http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=100370
There is an article on the health benfits of stabilized rice bran on Natural News, as well:
http://www.naturalnews.com/029364_tocotrienols_rice_bran.html
Posted by Nonie De Long on August 4, 2010
http://stonesouptoronto.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/brown-rice-and-whole-wheat-products-are-they-really-that-good-for-you/
Having successfully treated my son's multiple serious mental health symptoms with food and nutraceuticals (such that his diagnosis changed and he stopped having seizures), I have become passionate about the link between nutrition and natural medicine and mental and physical health. To better understand this link, I am currently studying for my degree as a Holistic Nutritionist through IHN.
This blog developed as a medium to share my experiences, as well as information and resources I believe citizens can use to make informed choices about health issues. It has since blossomed into a website: stone-soup.ca, which features free newsletters and podcasts, local health related classes and gatherings, info on related community events, and a gluten-free, diabetic catering and brown bag lunch service within the GTA.
